Timeline to reopen Cambria’s damaged French Corner Bakery unknown

As those injured continue their recoveries after a truck crashed into a couple of other vehicles and the French Corner Bakery in Cambria last month, it’s still unknown how long it will take for things to get back to normal on the corner of Burton Drive and Main Street.

For fans of the bake shop, along with business owners Miguel and Lupe Viveros and their staff, “normal” would mean repairs being completed and the bakery once again providing its scones, breads, cookies and other products.

On Tuesday, March 7, Miguel Viveros and building owner Alvin Ferrer (a pharmacist who also owns the drug-and-gift store next door) each said separately they still didn’t know when the repairs might be complete, or exactly what those repairs must include.

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Viveros said the building inspector had been at the bakery again that morning, and Ferrer said he’d been speaking with the insurance adjuster about what changes might need to be made to the structure that the baker called “very, very old.”

Indeed, during World War II, the salesroom of the bakery was the lube bay for a service station, complete with lift, pegboard for tools and expanding metal gate. That area and the room behind it were remodeled into a bakery in 1979, and the Viveros family has owned the business for a dozen years.

Recovering

Ruth Armstrong said March 7 that’s she’s doing “quite well, even though I can’t walk or drive.” Her leg was broken in at least four places and required more than three hours of surgery.

She’s in a wheelchair now, and probably will be for another six weeks or so, “because they don’t want me putting any weight” on the leg. But she’s not letting the injury slow her down. “I go to the (Cambria Pines) Lodge every night.”

Armstrong said she’s heard a lot of rumors about the driver Jeremy Ian Preston, 40, about the truck he was driving and another vehicle that was hit before the marauding truck clobbered Mac VanDuzer’s Mercedes and shoved it inside the bakery. But Armstrong hasn’t been able to confirm those details.

“I don’t think anything will happen overnight, though,” she said of the bakery repairs and the trial for Preston, who was arrested on a charge of driving under the influence of a drug, which in this case would be a felony because the crash caused injuries. He’s currently out of jail, having been bailed out.

Melody Coe reported on the condition of her friend Phil Taylor, who also was injured in the crash, but who wasn’t reachable by phone March 7.

“He’s doing well,” she said. He’s regaining more specific memories about the crash, she said, including that he “was struck by the red car when it came in, and then he wound up under the pickup.”

Coe said Taylor told her “the table chopped into his stomach when he was pushed over” by the Mercedes. Doctors are doing additional X-rays and rechecking his stomach muscles, some of which may have been torn, Coe said. And the bruises! “His legs are all yellow and purple.”

VanDuzer appears to be recovering nicely, something he confirmed on his Facebook page on March 5. He wrote, “Sorry I flunked FB 101~~hope this msg gets out~~VERY thankful all OK.”

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Elizabeth and Steven Kelly of Camarillo also were injured in the crash. He was released the same day from Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center, and she was no longer in the hospital by Tuesday, Feb. 28.